Nimrud

Nimrud, also known as Kalhu or Calah, is an ancient Assyrian city located 20 miles south of Mosul in present-day Iraq. It was a major Assyrian city between 1350 BC and 610 BC, and Shalmaneser V was responsible for its expansion and rise to prominence; its modern name "Nimrod" comes from the widespread belief by 19th century Bible scholars that the city had been founded by the Mesopotamian king Nimrod. Under King Ashurnasirpal (r. 883-859 BC) of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, it replaced Assur as the Assyrian capital, and, in 800 BC, it had 75,000 inhabitants, making it the largest city in the world. In 706 BC, Sargon II moved the capital to Dur Sharrukin, and his successor Sennacherib moved it to Nineveh a year later. In mid-2014, during the Iraqi Civil War, the Islamic State overran the nearby area and bulldozed Nimrod and its archaeological site on 5 March 2015, having destroyed thousands of books and manuscripts, vandalized Akkadian monuments, and systematically levelled the Ziggurat with heavy machines in November 2016, the same month that the Iraqi Army reclaimed the area.